Privileged people worried about the more rich, don't care about the poor, they hate the poor, because if they didn't they'd worry about the poor, instead of worrying about the rich.

I don't care how much money my neighbor has, but if my other neighbor is out of work or needs to eat, I should help.

That quote shows exactly why I'm conservative for liberal reasons. I've been poor. Poor people don't want to engage in class warfare, they want to eat, and work, and not be poor. Liberals want poor people to stay poor and dependent as a continued counter-example to those nasty rich folks.

Here's a question. Does anyone running for President really give a fuck about the people that Gingrich's ad pretends to care about in that silly Bain short?

Where does Paul Ryan's plan leave them? Where does the ultraglobalization that noone in either party really opposes, leave them? It is fine to whisper sweet bromides about "job creators." But tripling down on what we already have, no evidence supports that it will really lead to jobs with health insurance, for people in areas like upstate South Carolina.

I would love to see "Question Time" be adopted in America. Let the President take on all comers on the floor of the House once every two weeks for a couple of hours. In fact, let it be televised live. The ratings would rival anything else on TV.

You didn't pick a fight with the grocer's daughter and come away unscathed.

She hit the nail of Socialism on the head - especially in regard to lowered standards of living for everyone in the name of "fairness".

harrogate said...

Here's a question. Does anyone running for President really give a fuck about the people that Gingrich's ad pretends to care about in that silly Bain short?

Clearly, the Left doesn't or they'd quit demagoguing a company whose rate of turning around companies was 80%. And, in any kind of good economy, the people at the companies venture capital outfits like Bain couldn't save could go out and get new jobs.

But not after the mess the Lefties have made the last few years.

If the Left were concerned about jobs, they'd quit taxing the people who really provide them out of existence.

What the Lefties want is power, concentrated in their hands.

Where does Paul Ryan's plan leave them? Where does the ultraglobalization that noone in either party really opposes, leave them? It is fine to whisper sweet bromides about "job creators." But tripling down on what we already have, no evidence supports that it will really lead to jobs with health insurance, for people in areas like upstate South Carolina.

When was the issue "jobs with health insurance"?

It was supposed to be jobs. Which the Lefties have failed miserably at producing.

You make a good wage and you buy health insurance - until people like harrogate get their hands on the system and then no one can afford it and have to get it from the Feds' death panels.

The honorable gentlemen orates "How can she justify many people in a constituency such as mine being relatively much poorer, much less well housed, and much less well provided than it was in 1979." (my emphasis)

There's only so much abuse that word "relatively" can take before the litany of complaint becomes comic. I don't doubt the man's sincerity. But it takes astonishing historical myopia to turn "better housed" into "relatively ... much less well housed" and build a platform on it.

Between income disparity and income mobility, I care only about the mobility, the chances that someone born in the bottom can move up. According to the NYT last week, there is a nearly 1 in 10 chance that someone born in the bottom 20% will move into the top 20% tier. That, I think is pretty good. There is a 58% chance that someone born into the bottom tier will move out of that tier. I'd like that to be higher, but really, I'm not sure that can be achieved in a free society, and in fact a freer society would likely see that improve.

In addition, I think it is important to look at how those in the bottom tier are doing. The key questions: do they have decent housing, food and clothing? The bottom tier has improved in each of those areas. I consider the obesity "problem" among the poor to be a triumph of western civilization. Not perfect, but it beats starvation, and it's not close.

Another point that Thatcher hits in her first response, but doesn't repeat: You can't afford a social service infrastructure if your country isn't creating wealth. It's a different point, but no less damning to socialism.

I suppose I should be angry that a dork like Mark Zuckerberg is worth billions because what did he do to deserve all that money? Create some stupid social media website?

But I'm not because I'm not a liberal consumed with the petty jealousy of a 13 year old girl who didn't win free tickets to see Justin Bieber. If anything I should kick myself that some geeky dork thought of it before I did which is why he is a billionaire and I'm not.

A good chunk of the 'rich' are so because they have foresight that others don't have and the ambition to take risks many won't. Hell I know a certain individual who just turned down a promotion and a $15k pay increase because the new position meant some longer hours and having to do presentations. She's perfectly fine with her current gig but that's as good as it will ever get for her either.

Hoosier Daddy: "A good chunk of the 'rich' are so because they have foresight that others don't have and the ambition to take risks many won't."

I agree with a slight modification. Many people have the ideas and the foresight. Only a few have the guts and energy to try and execute them. Thus it is that all of us at one time or another look at a great idea and say to ourselves: I thought of that!!

Jay Retread: Perhaps thousands did lose jobs in some of the Bain transactions. But I would be surprised to know that they are still unemployed. Many, if not most, of those who were made to walk the plank during the years of dynamic change in corporate American went on to better jobs. Many had to resort to starting their own businesses and ended up hiring others. I have had to let a lot of people go during my career and I do not know a single one who did not end up on their feet and doing well. Sometimes very very well.

That quote shows exactly why I'm conservative for liberal reasons. I've been poor. Poor people don't want to engage in class warfare, they want to eat, and work, and not be poor. Liberals want poor people to stay poor and dependent as a continued counter-example to those nasty rich folks.

CNN.com has an opinion piece on Romney today. The point of the piece is to tear down Romney because he's beginning to look like a real threat to the Chosen One, but they have to say more than "Ugh, Romney bad."

They start off with a false dichotomy, "What Kind of Capitalist Is Romney?" 'The choice is between "stakeholder capitalism" and "shareholder capitalism."' Of course Romney is a shareholder capitalist because that is the bad kind.

As a worker, I've worked in both stakeholder and shareholder capitalist companies, if you want to make that distinction. As an employee, I can't say one is better than the other.

I currently work in an employee owned company (stakeholder) where we are given shares and bonuses annually based on longevity, rank and company profits. (Yep, those damn upper management types think they deserve more than use front line workers.)

The system for electing the board of directors is rigged so that no one except that chosen few have a chance of being elected.

Essentially, there's no significant difference from a publicly traded company like Proctor & Gamble where you get paid more, can buy stock (with that extra money) and a truck dock worker can retire a millionaire before the age of 50.

Romney's most likely a guy who perceives given tasks, performs those tasks according to the rules and situation at hand and performs quite competently. The NYT had a high opinion of he leadership of the Olympic committee. I thought this comment interesting: “He always has an objective in mind and a goal that he works toward,” said Randy L. Dryer, a lawyer and a former member of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee who worked closely with Mr. Romney and described himself as a Democrat, but also an admirer of Mr. Romney’s. “But he’s not unwilling to modify that objective if it’s an uphill battle and not worth the fight to get there — he is not bullheaded.”

"A good chunk of the 'rich' are so because they have foresight that others don't have and the ambition to take risks many won't."

The biggest part of being self employed, in business and hopefully becoming rich is taking that risk.

When I was deciding whether to leave my comfy and cushy bank officer position, where I had a salary, benefits and basically had reached the highest level of career that I could without moving to another location: my husband gave me the best advice and made an analogy.

"You are standing on the edge of the cliff, like the cliff divers in Acapulco looking down at the narrow inlet of the ocean watching the tide come in and out. You can either step back and huddle in your safe job or take a leap of faith and jump. You might crash into the rocks or you might hit the tide at its highest point. Either way.....make a decision!!"

I jumped and never regretted it. But the temptation to stay in my safe secure job was strong.

It is the jumpers who make the economy and society better.

Those who don't jump are the ones who are envious and resentful of the ones who do jump. They want to hold the bold entrepreneur down because they didn't have the balls or vision to take the leap of faith.

Conservatism on the other hand, is the mostt moral choice and offers the opportunity for an exchange of goods and services that benefit 2 or more parties (Walter Williams does a great job breaking this down and explaining it in simple terms).

TraditionalGuy: I think you are right about the "old rich" but not about the new. The old rich in a city like Atlanta or Memphis or Montgomery would happily spend a dollar to prevent you making a dime. The new rich only care about being rich themselves and do not see anything lost to newcomers since their status is enhanced, not threatened, by newbies. I have trod a bit in both worlds and believe we are now at the happiest median in my lifetime. Fewer and fewer people believe, as once they did, that the Mayflower heaved up on the shores of the Chattahoochie or the Flint or the Mississippi or the Bayou Deview at which point their ancestors disembarked.

You're telling my story. 17 years ago I had a state job which quite frankly I could not get fired from unless I did something criminal on company time and which gave terrific benefits.

I was presented with opportunity to go into my own business, but it would take a lot of work with no obvious guarantee of success --- and I would be responsible for my own benefits. I also had 4 young children to raise.

I remember writing a 5 page note to myself weighing both sides of the issue and then I DID IT.

Best decision I ever made. I worked harder than I ever did, spend a lot of sleepless nights in home office, went without vacation time because "the work just has to get done", but I also make a lot more than I ever imagined I would.

And if anyone tells me that I'm not paying my fair share or that I owe people like Elizabeth Warren credit for my success, well I say: **** YOU!!!

I would love to see "Question Time" be adopted in America. Let the President take on all comers on the floor of the House once every two weeks for a couple of hours. In fact, let it be televised live. The ratings would rival anything else on TV.

I'm for it as long as the listening Congressmen can boo and hiss like the British MPs do.

My wife's boss is a VP. He works day and night. She says he is over several departments and he micro-manages and just works and works.

That is what these high paying executives do. The million dollar salaries go to those who make their lives their work.

But the liberals would kill that and thus kill all incentive to make anything. Jobs, industry, new products, inventions.... Just as long as everyone is poor and 'equal', except the politicians, then that's ok with liberals.

You do realize that the income-mobility escalator runs both up and down, yes? Every time someone moves into the top quintile, someone else moves out of it. Every time someone moves out of the bottom quintile, someone else moves into it.

I think that income mobility is a good thing, but let's not pretend that there isn't a loser for every winner -- if all you care about is where you stand in the income hierarchy. If what you care about, OTOH, is the absolute standard of living of everyone, then you are likely to prefer a system that permits greater inequality as a means to growth all round. It all boils down to whether you think it's more important to keep up with the Joneses than to have what you need and want for yourself and your family.

Me, I don't care how Bill Gates or the Koch Brothers or George Soros or Beyonce and Jay-Z live (except when the last two appropriate a hospital wing and keep the little people from visiting their premature babies). I care how I live, how my friends live, how the worst-off among us live. If policies that help every one of us end up making the gap between rich and poor relatively larger, while at the same time improving everyone's lot, I'm fine with that. Absent a supervillain who goes all Dr. Evil with his One. Million. Dollars!!!, there isn't much to do with a Soros- or Gates- or Buffett- like pile of zeros but give it away. You can buy only so many mansions and Bentleys and helicopters and private jets before the thing starts to get a trifle old.

What garage, machine, harrogate and the the tilty-cap boy want is to piss on the dead bodies of American businesses.

Of course, what happens next is as unknown to them as it was to the Soviets, Cubans, and Chi-coms.

All they ever seem to come up with is beating people for not making shit into shinola, or starving them to death."

And what they don't see is that they are nowhere near beingthe Elite who will control things...they will live under that control like the rest of us. Want examples? Try the New York Times. How come their inept CEO is getting millions of dollars in a bonus while the regular workers are suffering? (Thanks, Mr. Instapundit & Forbes)

This one is in my youtube favorites and should be required viewing. Why does liberalism try to confuse and muddle such simple concepts. The wealth disparity issue is as elegantly simple as Mrs Thatcher describes